In this episode, we discuss that we should know what we are chasing in life because if we don’t, we might find out the thing we were chasing wasn’t worth it.
Hi Everyone, welcome to the You’re Daily Cup of Joe Podcast, with your host Joe Bautista. In this podcast, my goal is to give you quick lessons that you can reflect on in your journal so you can grow yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually and have a better career, better relationships, and better personal finances while you enjoy your morning cup of coffee.
I’m also the author of the book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to Get Better Every Day”. In this book, I wrote down over 30 tips to help you grow in those four cornerstones. I’m also the founder of Grow With Joe, where I combine self-development coaching and financial planning for Latino Professionals.
At the end of today’s podcast episode, I’m going to give you a prompt question to reflect on in your journal. The idea is to take one to five minutes to reflect on today’s lesson and write a minimum of one paragraph on how you can apply the lesson in your life. You can use an actual journal, a word document like on Google Drive, or your note-taking app like Evernote. The idea is that you’re actually thinking about how to process the information to help you improve your life.
In today’s episode, we are going to talk about how if the grass is always greener on the other side, it’s probably fake. In today’s media landscape, it’s real easy to take a photo in front of a fancy car or jet and associate yourself with that success, without having that success.
I recently watched a video on Youtube, where they were going over the show MTV Cribs and how people like 50 Cent, Bow Wow, and JoJo, didn’t own all the stuff that was shown at their crib. JoJo didn’t even own the home that she was at, while 50 Cent and Bow Wow didn’t own any of the vehicles. They were rented to show the illusion of success.
As a financial planner, when you get to see someone’s budget, assets, and liabilities, you can get a pretty good picture of who is trying to maintain fake grass and who is not. I used to work at the Pentagon and White House and before those experiences, I thought they would be extra special than what they were. Yeah, you can get to experience some cool stuff, but you don’t see all the other work that goes into running these two buildings.
No one has a perfect life and there are issues that people are dealing with. Someone that has a lot of assets, might have trouble with their family and don’t maintain a strong bond. Of course, there are certain problems you want to have over others, but don’t assume that everything is good.
Debt is something that could be causing fake grass as well. I used to live in DC and would wonder how people maintain their lifestyles, and I could run a budget and see how they were living in my head, and I could see that their paycheck is not keeping up with their lifestyle. It reminds of the saying we spend money that we don’t have to impress people that we don’t even like. Or it could be the case that we’re trying to keep up with people who have more resources than us. Both are fatal.
Right now, I’m living as a digital nomad, and not everything is perfect. You have to deal with loneliness at times because you’re in a new country and don’t understand the language completely. You might choose the wrong Airbnb. I accumulating business debt from my last business that I’m still trying to pay off. So it helps to live in a country like Colombia because it’s so cheap to live here and I can focus on school and my business. I hope no one thinks my journey is easy and completely stress-free because they are things in my life that give me stress and worries that I need to deal with.
There are a lot of things in the world where you think it would be nice to have their life but you really don’t. To be a celebrity that can’t go to the local coffee shop without being hassled probably has a lot of cool things in their life but that doesn’t mean they are completely miserable in other parts of their lives. I remember hearing a story of an actress winning the Oscar, and after the show, she just showed up to empty home with this huge reward. So winning huge rewards might not give you the satisfaction in life either because you have other empty things in your life.
There are plenty of ways to design a good life or a fake life, it will be better for your sanity if you can design the good life and that might mean some trade-offs. Just now what is important to you and what’s not important, and start designing a life that removes the unimportant stuff and adds more of the important stuff to your life.
That’s it for today’s episode, to summarize it if the grass is always greener on the other side, it’s probably fake. I look at the bosses that I had in the past, and I can say I didn’t want to there on life. I had one boss that traveled so much from office to office that he said one time he fell at the wheel. I don’t care how much money, I’m getting paid, I don’t want to die in a car because I was working too hard. Luckily he was alright and nothing happened, but that experience served as a reminder to me to be careful of what I chase. And if you chase the fake grass, it’s going to cause you to harm sooner or later.
So in your journal, ask yourself, what is about a certain lifestyle that you crave? Does it seem like their life is problem-free? Do you think all your problems will go away if you obtain this thing? What are all the good things and bad things about this thing you desire? Could somebody be faking the results for you? Just ask questions about the situation that you desire and see if it fits within your values and principles. We only have one life to live, so let’s make sure we use our time correctly by chasing things that will truly make us happy.
Thanks for listening today! To get a free copy of my audiobook “More You Know, More You Grow: How to get better every day” just go to my website growwithjoe.me/book and you can download it right there.
I have a quiz on my website that grades your inner circle, so if you want to find out if your inner circle is an A, B, C, D, or F, you can take that quiz at growwithjoe.me/quiz
I’m also trying to do a feedback Friday episode, so if you have a question that you would like to have my answer on the air, just e-mail me at [email protected]
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Thanks for joining me today and remember if you go with Joe, you can grow with Joe, cause Joe knows Dough.
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